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'It's a new technology that is full of promise,' said Jean-Pierre Wolf, professor in the Physics Section at UNIGE's Faculty of Science.

'The very short wavelengths can carry 10,000 times more items of information than radio frequency, and there aren't any limits to the number of channels', he said.

'Lasers can also be used to target a single person, meaning it's a highly secure form of communication.'

Experts are building more and more ground stations capable of receiving the laser signals in various parts of the world.

The idea is to choose the station targeted by the satellite according to the weather.

Although satellite radio communication is powerful, it can no longer keep up with the daily demand for the flow of information (stock image)

However, this is not ideal as it is difficult to tell if there will be cloud cover at specific times.

'We want to get around the problem by making a hole directly through the clouds so that the laser beam can pass through,' said Professor Wolf.

His team has developed a laser that heats the air over 1,500°C.

It produces a shock wave to expel the suspended water droplets that make up the cloud.

This creates a hole a few centimetres wide over the entire thickness of the cloud through which the laser could travel.

It is the discovery of these ultra-powerful lasers that has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics 2018.

'All you then need to do is keep the laser beam on the cloud and send the laser that contains the information at the same time,' said Guillaume Schimmel, a researcher in the team led by Professor Wolf.

'It then slips into the hole through the cloud and allows the data to be transferred.'

This 'laser cleaner' is currently being tested on artificial clouds that are 20 inches (50cm) thick but that contain 10,000 times more water than a natural cloud.

'Our experiments mean we can test an opacity that is similar to natural clouds. Now it's going to be about doing it on thicker clouds up to one kilometre thick,' said Professor Wolf.

'We're talking about possible global implementation by 2025, and our idea is to be ready and to allow countries that are overcast to have this technology', he said.